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How to Enhance Sustainability through Transformational Leadership: The Important Role of Employees’ Forgiveness

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  • Byung-Jik Kim

    (Sogang Business School, Sogang University, Seoul 04107, Korea)

  • Tae-Hyun Kim

    (College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul 02455, Korea)

  • Se-Youn Jung

    (Prime College, Korea National Open University, Seoul 03087, Korea)

Abstract

The present research attempts to investigate an intermediating process that influences an association between transformational leadership and innovative behavior. Previous studies have mainly focused on the intrapsychic traits of individual employees (e.g., intrinsic motivation and psychological empowerment) as an important mediator to explain the enhancing effect of transformational leadership on employee’s creativity. Yet, given that many interactions among employees in an organization tend to occur in the form of ‘interpersons’, the importance of interpersonal relationship-based traits has received relatively less attention from leadership scholars. Based on the context-attitude-behavior framework, we posit that transformational leadership enhances innovative behavior by boosting the level of employees’ forgiveness which is an interpersonal relationship-based trait among employees. We conducted structural equation modeling analysis with a survey from 374 employees in South Korea. The result demonstrated that forgiveness partially mediates the influence of transformational leadership on innovative behavior. We believe that our finding may contribute to expanding transformational leadership and positive organizational scholarship literature by identifying a new path that transformational leadership increases innovative behavior. The theoretical and practical implications, limitations of this study, and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Byung-Jik Kim & Tae-Hyun Kim & Se-Youn Jung, 2018. "How to Enhance Sustainability through Transformational Leadership: The Important Role of Employees’ Forgiveness," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-13, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:8:p:2682-:d:161001
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mahmood Rehmani & Nazia Farheen & Munnawar Naz Khokhar & Afia Khalid & Ali F. Dalain & Huda Irshad, 2023. "How Does Transformational Leadership Stimulate Employee Innovative Behavior? A Moderated Mediation Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, September.
    2. Saira Begum & Enjun Xia & Khalid Mehmood & Yaser Iftikhar & Yan Li, 2020. "The Impact of CEOs’ Transformational Leadership on Sustainable Organizational Innovation in SMEs: A Three-Wave Mediating Role of Organizational Learning and Psychological Empowerment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-16, October.
    3. Wayu Eko Yudiatmaja & Roy Valiant Salomo & Eko Prasojo, 2023. "Fostering Innovative Behavior of Millennial Public Employee Through Leadership Styles and Organizational Trust," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(2), pages 21582440231, June.
    4. Rushana Khusanova & Suk Bong Choi & Seung-Wan Kang, 2019. "Sustainable Workplace: The Moderating Role of Office Design on the Relationship between Psychological Empowerment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour in Uzbekistan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-20, December.
    5. Francisco Rodríguez-Cifuentes & Jesús Farfán & Gabriela Topa, 2018. "Older Worker Identity and Job Performance: The Moderator Role of Subjective Age and Self-Efficacy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-13, December.
    6. Nazia Habib & Sajid Hussain Awan & Shaheryar Naveed & Chaudhry Shoaib Akhtar, 2020. "Effectiveness of Interpersonal Leadership for Engagement and Task Performance of Nurses," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, May.

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